Freeman Peak

Date: February 11, 2022.

Objective: Freeman Peak 8,111ft.

Stats: 10 miles and 2,600ft of gain in 4:33 round trip.  Strava.

I had been "needing" to check this peak off for a while.  It is one of what I would call the three major summits of the Mores Creek Summit area.  This winter has been super dry and there has been a wide spread sun/ wind crust, but avalanche danger has been low.  I figured it would make a good solo tour and I could ski some laps if I found good snow.

I left MCS at 0900 and it felt fairly warm.  The FS road had been groomed but it was super icy.  It was just a straight forward skin up an icy road with the occasional snow mobile for about 3.8 miles to the Four Corners Junction.  From there, it's just a few ups and downs and I just left my skins on.  

Icy road heading up.

View looking south.

Signage.

Looking towards Freeman behind the trees.

I climbed up the spur road on the east side of the peak that heads toward the mine on the map, keeping just slightly north of the saddle of that hill and Freeman.  The north facing shaded/ sheltered slopes heading up Freeman had some sugary powder and lots of snow mobile tracks; nothing that looked too inciting to lap.  

Looking back towards Pilot Peak.

The highpoint is on the south end of the summit ridge.  Not a whole lot in the way of views due to the trees.  It was a beautiful day and I thought a lot about John Platt.  After a few minutes of meditation on the summit, it was time for a break.  This was a fairly light volume day for me thus far and I hadn't eaten much.  I wasn't super hungry either.  I decided one Gu and a few sips of water would get me by for a while.

On the highpoint.

Looking towards Shafer Butte and Mores Mountain.

Selfie before decent.

The clearing just below and to the north of the summit had a nice open slope facing east and I was hoping that by now, the snow would have turned to some really nice, or at least mediocre corn and I could get my lap on.  It was actually still really icy with snow mobile tracks.  I figured that by now I didn't need or want to wait for it to maybe soften up, so I called it a day.  It was a fast, chattery and still friggin' icy ski back to the car.